Claiming that the president was preying on the public’s fear of contracting a fatal disease last week when he declared the H1N1 virus a national emergency, Republican leaders announced Wednesday that they were officially endorsing the swine flu.

“Thousands of Americans—hardworking ordinary Americans like you and me—already have H1N1,” Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said during a press conference. “Now Obama wants to take that away from us. Ask yourself: Do you want the federal government making these kinds of health care decisions for you and your family?”

Other prominent Republicans opposing Obama’s declaration of emergency include Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, who urged residents of his state to continue not washing their hands.

well, yeah, and god forbid polio or smallpox make a resurgence, because you know Obama will only issue public health alerts to freak people out.

I am so OVER IT with the predictable tactics of the Party of No.

Oddly enough (or, perhaps, refreshing to realize) there is a perverse, even predictable logic underpinning their public antics, and it is something relatively unexplored in politic discourse to date. I refer to the fundamental authoritarian orientation that has infiltrated party-aligned conservatism these days. I am (surprise) about to start blogging about that in some detail at my website. See Authoritarians and Conservative Politics for my initial forey into this topic area.

(That is merely the shot across the bow, setting the theme. More substantive posts will follow.)

Interesting thought to go with some of the morbid things we see today, if the wingnuts refuse the swine flue vaccination because it is part of the Obomacare, will we have fewer wingnuts in the future, or just a bunch of plauge carriers?